I suggested that the report, without pretending even to be a full summary of his speech, might be accurate as to phrases and sentences pronounced by him.

“Yes, as to phrases,” he answered, “that might be; but the phrases may be taken out of their true connection, and strung together in an untruthful, yet telling way.  Even my words were not fully set down,” he said, with some heat.  “I was made to call a man ‘level,’ when I said in the American way that he was ‘level-headed.’” A propos of this, I am told that the American word “spree” has become Hibernian, and is used to describe meetings of the National League and “other political entertainments.”

When I told Father M’Fadden I had just come from Rome, where, as I had reason to believe, the Vatican was anxious to get evidence from others than Archbishop Walsh and Monsignore Kirby, of the Irish College, as to the attitude of the priests in Ireland towards the laws of the United Kingdom, he said he knew that “some Italian prelates neither understood nor approved the ‘Plan of Campaign,’ nor is the Irish Land question understood at Rome;” but this did not seem to disturb him much, as he was quite sure that in the end the “Plan of Campaign” would be legalised by the British Government.  “I think I see plainly,” he said, “that Lord Ernest’s government is fast going to pieces, though I can’t expect him to admit it!” Lord Ernest laughed good-naturedly, and said that Father M’Fadden saw more in Donegal than he (Lord Ernest) was able to see in Westminster.  Upon my asking him whether the “Plan of Campaign” did not in effect abrogate the moral duty of a man to meet the legal obligations he had voluntarily incurred, Father M’Fadden advanced his own theory of the subject, which was that, “if a man can pay a fair year’s rent out of the produce of his holding, he is bound to pay it.  But if the rent be a rack-rent, imposed on the tenant against his will, or if the holding does not produce the rent, then I don’t think that is a strict obligation in conscience.”

In America, the courts, I fear, would make short work of this theory of Father M’Fadden.  If a tenant there cannot pay his first quarter’s rent (they don’t let him darken his soul by a year’s liabilities) they promptly and mercilessly put him out.

Interesting as was our conversation with the parish priest of Gweedore, I felt that we might be trespassing too far upon his kindness and his time.  So we rose to go.  He insisted upon our going into the dining-room, where, as he told us, he had hospitably entertained sundry visiting statesmen from England, and there offered us a glass of the excellent wine of the country.  He excused himself from joining us as being “almost a teetotaller.”

On our return to the hotel I met the Galwegian strolling about.  When I told him of Father M’Fadden’s courteous hospitality, he said, “I am very glad you took that glass he offered.  I really believe his quarrel with Captain Hill dates back to Hill’s declining that same courtesy under Father M’Fadden’s roof.”